Joe Maddon has been around the league long enough to know that it will be a while before he hears the end of the Joel Peralta pine tar incident. As players who have been accused of using steroids can tell you, fans never let players or coaches live down any incident that involves the possibility of cheating. According to MLB.com’s Cut 4, well-known Washington, D.C. heckler Robin Ficker was really riding Maddon on Thursday night and yelling things like “check for pine tar” and “See, Maddon, it can be done without pine tar.” As you can see from the photo above that @ChanningPejic shared on Twitter, Maddon decided to respond.

The Rays skipper took a baseball, wrote “Stick up for those you care about” on it, smeared some pine tar on it and tossed to Ficker. Basically that is Maddon’s way of admitting that it doesn’t matter if it was right or wrong, he’s going to side with his player every time — even if that makes him a weird wuss.

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